My journey as a West Coast transplant, living and learning in the South, on my ongoing quest to prove that a smart scientist can still maintain a little bit of style.

Thursday, October 07, 2010

Thanks New Yorker

A perfect poem on my bus ride to work. We all give, and take, so much from those we love. Our worlds are so much richer for all our "sisters." By Brenda Shaughnessy.

I wish I had more sisters,enough to fight with and stillhave plenty more to confess to,embellishing the fight so that Ilook like I'm right and then turnall my sisters, one by one, againstmy sister. One sister will be so badthe rest of us will have a purposein bringing her back to whereit's good (with us) and we'll feeluseful, and she will feel loved.Then another sisterwill have a tragedy, and againwe will unite in our grief, judgingher much less that we did the badsister. This time it was notour sister's fault. This timeit could have happened to anyof us and in a way it did. We'llknow she wasn't the onlysister to suffer. We all sufferwith our choices, and weall have our choice of sisters.My sisters will seem like a bunchof alternate me's, all the waysI could have gone. I could seehow things pan out withouthaving to do the things myself.The abortions, the divorces,the arson, swindles, poison jelly.But who could say they weren'tmyself, we are so close. I mean,who can tell the difference?I could choose to be a fisherman'swife, since I'd be able to visitmy sister in her mansion, sippingbubbly for once, brayingto the others, who weren't invited.I could be a traveller, a seer,a poet, a potter, a flyswatter.None of those choices would beas desperate as they seem now.My life would be like one fingeron a hand, a beautiful, usable, ringed,wrung, piano-and-dishpan hand.There would be both more and lessof me to have to bear. None of uswould be forced to be strongerthan we could be. Each of us couldbe all of us. The pretty one.The smart one. The bitter one.The unaccountably-happy-for-no-reason one. I could be,for example, the hopelessone, and the next day my sisterwould take my place, and I wouldhold her up until my arms gave way